The All-Inclusive Fortress and the Empty Beach: Q3 1998 and Access Exclusion

Briefing

• All-inclusive format dominated north coast by 1998; beach access increasingly restricted.
• Survey of public beach points along north coast showed decline in accessible locations.
• Resort wristband systems actively prevented non-guests from reaching beaches.
• Fishing communities described losing traditional launching spots to resort security.
• Legal advocates noted Beach Control Act enforcement remained absent in practice.

The all-inclusive resort model had a particular relationship to beach access that made it more exclusionary in practice than other hospitality formats. A property operating as a true all-inclusive — where guests paid a single price that covered accommodation, food, drink, entertainment, and beach use — had a business interest in ensuring that its beach was used exclusively by paying guests. A non-guest on the beach was, in the all-inclusive accounting logic, consuming a resource they had not paid for, and the security systems that all-inclusive properties deployed were designed to prevent that consumption.

By 1998, the all-inclusive format was the dominant model of north coast Jamaica tourism, and the beach access implications were cumulative along the coast. A Jamaican seeking to spend a day at the sea along the north coast corridor between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios encountered a landscape of private beach frontage broken by occasional access points that, when they existed at all, were often poorly maintained, inconveniently located, or subject to informal intimidation. The public beach points that were marked on official maps and referenced in development approvals conditions were not always functioning public beaches in practice.

The Fishing Community Experience

For fishing communities with traditional boat-launching points along the north coast, the expansion of all-inclusive resort coverage had a practical operational impact that went beyond recreational beach access. Fishers who had launched from specific points for generations found those points now within resort security perimeters; negotiating access for boat launching through resort security on a daily basis was a different relationship to the coast than the unimpeded access they had previously enjoyed. Some fishing operations relocated their launching points; others maintained the traditional locations through informal arrangements with resort security or management that were subject to unilateral termination. The economic vulnerability of fishing communities that depended on coastal access was structurally greater than the advocacy arguments about public beach rights captured.

Related: Property Market Analysis | NEPA Jamaica

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